A symbol of Venus—love and devotion.
The contradiction of blossom and thorn.
The rose plays the same role in the West that the lotus plays in the Orient. Both blossom, producing many thousands of petals, and represent the highest stage of consciousness.
The rose is often a symbol of the self. As a well-known symbol of love, it points to the dreamer’s feeling of security and suggests that he should be more open to love.
The Greek word rodor for rose came from the ancient Greek word for “flowing,” which may have been coined to convey the flow of fragrance from this flower. But this never-ending flow of fragrance from the rose also shortens its life, causing it to wilt rapidly. Because this magnificently flowering, fragrant blossom wilts so fast, it is also considered a symbol of death.
The rose also points to the world beyond, which is the reason that the Catacombs in Rome are decorated with garlands of roses.
The rose also is the harbinger of death in the Oraclesy and it is reported that a few days before their death, bishops would find a white rose on their chair.
The belief in the death-announcing rose has influenced customs in England and Germany, where people have been reluctant to bring roses to a sick person. And if a rose bush produced a green rose—that is, when the petals turned green—as English folklore had it, a family member would die.
It is not only in England that the rose is connected with death. As far back as ancient Rome, every year a festival of the roses was celebrated where the dead were honored. Graves were decorated with wreaths made from roses.
Since time immemorial, what happens in the presence of the rose is not talked about. In antiquity, when a rose was suspended above the table, the meal was taken “sub rosa,” as it was called then, which means that absolutely nothing from the conversation was repeated after the meal.
The early Christians took up this symbolic tradition: the presence of a rose indicated that silence was to be observed when heathens were among them.
The rose as the symbol for silence continued into the 18th century, when, for instance, wooden roses were carved into the woodwork of the confessional and roses were also included in the stucco of the halls of the court.
The rose, like the lotus, is considered the perfect flower, which is one of the reasons why the Christian Church declared it to be the image of wisdom. This was instrumental in the rose becoming a symbol of Christ. Mary is also depicted as a rose, but a rose without thorns, because in Christian symbolism the thorns of the rose indicate sin, and Mary was free of sin.
The rose has something very mystical about it. Praying the rosary is considered meditation.
The Sufis pray with a drop of rose fragrance dabbed on the area of the “third eye,” because it is said that the rose cleanses and strengthens the spirit. In ancient Greece a wreath of roses was already thought to strengthen the mind.
The Roman Emperor wore a wreath of roses for the same reason. Romans wore wreaths made from roses during decadent outdoor feasts, because they hoped the roses would minimize the effects of too much drinking.
The rose as the image of a clear mind was also known to the alchemists, who connected the rose to the idea of deliverance. In Dante’s Paradiso the small group of saved sinners is pictured in the form of a white rose above which angels circle like bees. That the way to salvation is possible only through love is perhaps the most important lesson of the rose, the flower originally dedicated to Aphrodite, goddess of love. But that the rose also symbolizes flesh and blood is seen in the fact that Dionysus also claimed the rose to be his.
Time and again we hear about a rose bush that never stops blooming; about rose branches in a vase that for 70 years produced white blossoms; and about how the food for the poor that, in the basket of saints, is transformed into roses.
For those interested in the magic of the rose, we might also mention the Pentagram of the Rose.
If you connect the center of each petal with the center of the petal that comes after the next, you will form a pentagram, the foot of the Druids, the old magic figure that Faust wanted to use to overcome Satan.
The Greeks considered the long-lived, five-leaved rose bush, with the imprint of a pentagram, to be the symbol of the cycle of the Cosmos, which, according to Aristotle, is determined by the five elements (fire, water, earth, air, and ether). Also, the Rosicrucians see the rose as a symbol of hidden wisdom, using it as a symbol in their cross.
The color of the rose is also important.
A wilted rose is a sign of a relationship gone bad. According to Jung, the rose is always the symbol for wholeness, representing, in the form of the mandala, a symbol for the order of the world.... Little Giant Encyclopedia
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